Let’s get something straight right now.

This business of using nutria for some sort of coonass Groundhog Day does NOT have universal support within the coypus community. Frankly, those of us down here in Barataria are flat-out horrified about this.

Why, you ask? Shouldn’t we dig the publicity?

Because it ain’t Nutria Day, that’s why. Groundhog Day is for groundhogs. And we hold ourselves to some higher standards than a groundhog does. You ever seen a groundhog eat? Quel dommage, brutha.

Look, I know you people don’t have a high opinion of us, either. We’re the Rodney Dangerfields of the ecosystem down here. We’re the only vegetarians who get blamed for being bad for the environment, and we’re the only animals the lefties think it’s OK to kill. Meanwhile, they made that stupid friggin’ Bill Murray movie a hundred years ago and ever since groundhogs are supposed to be cute and cuddly.

It ain’t fair, I gotta tell ya. It ain’t fair at all.

Besides, no nutria I’ve ever heard of tore up anybody’s golf course. A groundhog? Let him loose on a par-5 and he’ll turn the thing into Verdun.

As for this Punxsutawney Phil, he says winter’s gonna end early. Like he has a freakin’ clue. First thing out of his mouth was that the Steelers were in the Super Bowl. As if those of us who don’t live in a hole in the ground weren’t aware of that a week and a half ago.

Moron though the fat groundhog might be, I’d just as soon leave all the predictions to him. Instead, now we have Cajun groundhogs – who look an awful lot like yours truly when I was a be-be.

For example, they have this little fella T-Boy over at the Audubon Zoo. He’s a nice kid, don’t get me wrong. Dumb as Joe Biden, but a sweetheart. Today they’re trotting him out on a scaled-down Mardi Gras float to find out what he thinks the weather’s gonna do.

As if he cares. He lives in a zoo, for cryin’ out loud. Feed him a Milk Bone, he’ll tell you whatever the hell you wanna hear. If you can shake him out of his hangover, that is. He told me last year they let him drink all the Andygator he wants.

But T-Boy isn’t alone. Over in New Iberia they dragged some couyon off a bayou and called him Pierre C. Shadeaux. And every year they ask him whether he sees more winter on the way. This year he told ’em he saw it, which means it’ll get hot sooner.

Or something.

As for me, don’t ask me about the weather. I have no idea. And I don’t think these other guys do, either. In fact, I know they don’t.